U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Mark Christie said on Thursday that natural gas-fired power will be crucial to meet rising U.S. electricity demand – a situation that requires a big increase in gas pipeline capacity, as well as new power plants.
“We’re going to build combined-cycle gas to meet this load from data centers. We have to because there’s no other way to serve it,” he told the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston, referring to a projected spike in power consumption from the technology industry.
Christie said other options to meet rising U.S. power consumption included nuclear power and coal-fired power. But he said nuclear reactors take too long to build and that utilities are not interested in coal.
“For whatever reason, we’re not building new coal plants,” he said.
U.S. utility demand for coal has slumped in the past two decades, in part because of concerns about pollution and climate change.
The FERC is an independent agency that regulates the interstate transmission of electricity, natural gas, and oil, including reviewing proposals for pipelines, LNG terminals, and licensing hydropower projects.
(Reporting by Arathy Somasekar Editing by Marguerita Choy)